NYT Discovers Protests Against ICE, Forgets Decades of US Intervention Creating Refugees
Hundreds protested ICE in Minneapolis, with the NYT highlighting organizers' attempts to disrupt agents' sleep by playing music outside hotels. Mayor Jacob Frey called it “mostly peaceful.” What the Times omits is the historical context: the very refugees ICE deports often flee conditions directly exacerbated—if not created—by decades of U.S. intervention, coup-backing, and economic policies in
Central and South America. (Remember Nicaragua in the 80s? Honduras in '09?) One might wonder if the New York Times considers the disruption of entire nations, the shattering of families, and the destabilization of regions as less newsworthy than a few ICE agents missing their beauty sleep. The cycle of intervention, refugee creation, and then brutal enforcement against those refugees is an
American tradition that mainstream media prefers to keep fragmented, lest connections be drawn.